…from beneath the crooked bough, witness 230 years of brutal tyranny by the al Khalifas come to an end

Syrian jihadists form ‘Supporters of the Khilafah’ Brigade
By Bill Roggio – 14 December, 2012 – Long War Journal

Five Syrian jihadist groups based in western Aleppo have joined together and announced the formation of the Supporters of the Khilafah (Caliphate). The group vowed to impose an Islamic state and fight democracy.

The five groups, which US intelligence officials described to The Long War Journal as local units within the Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, announced the creation of the Supporters of the Khilafah in a short video that was released on YouTube on Dec. 12. In the video, scores of Islamists, many dressed in military fatigues and brandishing RPGS and assault rifles, are seen standing on what appears to be a hill while the announcement is read. Numerous black banners of jihad are seen being flown by the fighters.

“We are the leaders of the following brigades,” one of the commanders, who is not named, stated. He then listed the brigades as the “Ansar Al Sharia Brigade, Abdullah Ibn El-Zubeir Brigade, The Men of Allah Brigade, The Martyr Mustafa Abdul-Razzaq’s Brigade, and the Swords of The Most Compassionate Brigade.”

The group said it “will strive actively to overturn the criminal, kaafir Baath regime” of President Bashir al Assad, and “will object to the conspiracies of the plotters, both internal and external (to Syria), and to bring down their sly plan: the plan of a civil democratic state.”

The Supporters of the Khilafah also indicated that they will seek to take the fight outside of Syria.

“And that we will work with the sincere people of our Ummah [the worldwide Muslim community] to establish the Islamic Khilafah state, and to use it to end decades of colonization and enslavement,” the statement said. “And to return to the way we were — as the nobles of the East and the West.”

The Supporters of the Khilafah also cautioned “our brothers” against taking Western aid and weapons.

“And indeed we invite our brothers who are fighters in the sincere brigades that they walk our path, and to declare their release from being tied to these new agents [of the West],” the statement said. “And we warn them against offering compromises in their religion, for the sake of receiving money or weapons. Because certainly, therein lies their destruction.”

Syrian jihadist groups coalescing

US intelligence officials have told The Long War Journal that Syrian jihadist groups are continuing to unite under the banner of the Al Nusrah Front, which was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on Dec. 11 [see LWJ reports, Syrian jihadists, including al Qaeda’s Al Nusrah Front, form Mujahideen Shura Council, and US adds Al Nusrah Front, 2 leaders to terrorism list, for more information].

In the terrorism designation, the US called the Al Nusrah Front “a new alias” for al Qaeda in Iraq, and said Al Nusrah is under the direct control of Abu Du’a, the emir of the Iraqi terror group.

In the past month, jihadist groups have organized under Al Nusrah’s banner in both Aleppo and Deir al Zour. On the same day the US government announced that al Qaeda in Iraq’s Al Nusrah Front was a terrorist organization, Al Nusrah and nine other jihadist groups banded together in the Syrian province of Deir al Zour and formed a Mujahideen Shura Council. The move is reminiscent of al Qaeda in Iraq’s creation of a Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq in 2006, a development that was quickly followed by the establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq, al Qaeda’s political front.

And in mid-November, 14 jihadist groups based in the Syrian city of Aleppo banded together to reject the newly formed National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. The 14 groups, which include the Al Nusrah Front, called instead for the establishment of “a just Islamic State.”

Despite Al Nusrah’s known affiliation with al Qaeda and its radical ideology, Syrian opposition groups, including the supposedly secular Syrian National Coalition, have rallied to support Al Nusrah. In recent days, 29 Syrian opposition groups have signed a petition that not only condemns the US’s designation, but says “we are all Al Nusrah,” and urges their supporters to raise Al Nusrah’s flag [see Threat Matrix report, Syrian National Coalition urges US to drop Al Nusrah terrorism designation].
…source

The U.S. government has used Qatar to support “democracy promotion” in the Middle East, including as a logistical base for the invasion of Iraq. But Qatar’s rulers don’t like threats to their own tyrannical powers, even jailing a poet for life for implicitly criticizing the ruling sheikh, William Boardman reports.

Qatar’s Hypocrisy on Freedom
12 December, 2012 – By William Boardman – Consortiumnews.com

Life in prison may seem a harsh sentence for reciting a poem out loud, but it’s apparently what state security demands in Doha, Qatar, where a secret court delivered this sentence at the end of a short, secret trial in a state security case tried there in November.

Muhammed ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami, 37, a Qatari poet with a wife and child, was studying literature at Cairo University when the Tunisian revolution broke out in December 2010. Inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, al-Ajami wrote a short poem, “Tunisian Jasmine” [see below], celebrating the overthrow of repressive elites. He recited the poem to private audiences and the audio of at least one such performance appeared on YouTube, but al-Ajami sayshe didn’t post it, and doesn’t know who did.

Qatari authorities took notice of the performance and, some months later, in November 2011, they arrested al-Ajami and held him in solitary confinement for most of a year before bringing him to trial. The state charged the poet with “insulting” Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, as well as “inciting to overthrow the ruling system,” an offense that carries the death penalty.

Al Ajami’s 2011 poem “Tunisian Jasmine” mentions no other country and does not name the Qatari emir or any other ruler. There is a report that the secret charges against al-Ajami also include a poem he wrote in 2010 that does criticize the emir.

Hereditary Monarch or Progressive?

Sheikh Al Thani, 60, came to power as emir in 1995 when, as Minister of Defense, he led a bloodless military coup that deposed his father who was then in Switzerland, and who lived in exile until 2004 (when he returned at 72).

Despite his dictatorial powers, Sheikh Al Thani is “considered to be progressive among leaders of Muslim countries. In a break with the traditional role, his second wife Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, 53, has been a visible advocate for education and children’s causes.” She has two daughters and five sons, one of whom is friends with the poet al-Ajami.

According to al-Ajami’s lawyer, Najeeb al-Nuaimi, state security called the poet in fall 2011 and asked him to report to the police. When he asked why, he was told just to report. Then he called his friend, the emir’s son, who assured him the police just wanted him for routine registration. So he went, and they questioned him about his poetry and arrested him. …more

New Year’s Eve Jail Solidarity Noise Demo
7 December, 2012 – Committee Against Political Repression

This New Year’s Eve join us for a noise demonstration outside the SeaTac Federal Detention Center. This is in response to the international call-out for noise demos and other actions against prisons, jails, and detention centers on New Year’s Eve.

Bring banners, loud noise-makers, pots and pans, sound systems, flyers, and whatever else could be useful. Please send this announcement to listserves and invite your friends.

Matt and Kteeo have been locked away inside the Detention Center since September 13 and September 27, respectively, for refusing to cooperate with a secret federal Grand Jury investigation targeting anarchists in the Pacific Northwest. It is likely that Maddy Pfeiffer will be joining them on December 14th.
Noise demonstrations are meant to break the isolation of prison by breaking through the walls with the sounds of solidarity. In a very real way, this small gesture can remind those on the inside that they are not alone and that there are many of us out here who are fighting alongside them. Like other solidarity actions, this noise demo is meant to strengthen the resolve of the defiant, courageous rebels the state is trying to coerce into participating in their strategy of repression.

…MORE

Caged in the USA: Torture in America’s many prisons
By Aviva Stahl – Contributed by angola3news – Cageprisoners.com – 14 December, 2012 – Mostly Water

(Reprinted by Angola 3 News)

Last week, I was lucky enough to be in the audience for a truly remarkable event: a conversation between two men whose lives have been indelibly altered by American’s brutal prison regime, Robert King and Omar Deghayes. At first glance, it might seem as if these two men have nothing in common. King grew up in New Orleans in an era of violent racial repression and is a Black Panther to this day; he was convicted by an all-white jury in 1973 for a murder he did not commit, and spent 32 years in Louisiana state prison. In his earliest childhood, Deghayes lived in Libya, but after his father was murdered by Gaddafi, he and his family fled to the UK. Deghayes was arrested in Pakistan in 2002, where he had been living with his Afghan wife and child, and spent over six years detained at Guantanamo without charge or trial.

Angola, Louisiana and Guantanamo Bay are actually quite near to each other. But for anyone present at the event, it was clear that what Omar and Robert had in common was more than geographic proximity during their confinement. After all, they were both unjustly imprisoned. They both fought for years for their freedom. And they both endured the same torture whilst on the inside: long-term solitary confinement.

Now that the words “Guantanamo Bay” have become synonymous with torture, it’s easy to assume that the tiny isolation cells where Omar and many others were kept, are something new, invented for the Muslim bogeyman. But solitary confinement in America’s “supermax” prisons didn’t begin at Gitmo; it began long before 9/11, long before the War on Terror, long before al-Qaeda or the Taliban. In the 1970s, “control units” were put in place, first in Marion prison (which replaced Alcatraz) and then elsewhere. These control units were largely implemented to neutralize activists imprisoned for struggling for Black and Third World liberation – people like Robert King, Ojore Lutalo, Ray Luc Levasseur, Siliva Baraldini, Leonard Peltier, Assata Shakur, and many others. The idea has always been to break prisoners by invoking in them a sense of total dependence on their captors. As Ralph Arons, a former warden at Marion, once testified in federal court, “The purpose of the Marion Control Unit is to control revolutionary attitudes in the prison system and in the society at large”.

Nor is the use of solitary to control political or politicized prisoners something confined to the era of COINTELPRO. Take Ojore Lutala, who survived 22 years in solitary in the Management Control Unit in Trenton State Prison, New Jersey. In February 2008, the Review Committee rejected Ojore’s request to be released into general population for the umpteenth time, noting:

“The [Committee] notes your concerns regarding your feelings of persecution and discrimination based on your political affiliation. The Committee continues to show concern regarding your admitted affiliation with the Black Liberation army and the Anarchist Black Cross Foundation. Your radical views and ability to influence others poses a threat to the orderly operation of this Institution…”

Interestingly, Marion – where control units were first born – now houses a Communication Management Unit (CMU), in which Muslims are overrepresented by over 1000%. The two CMUs are so strikingly similar to that dark place where Omar was held, that they’ve been nicknamed “Guantanamo North”: they both hold Muslim prisoners with political affiliations deemed to be dubious, in tortuous conditions of long-term solitary confinement.

Control units now exist in almost every state in the nation, and have also morphed into large supermax prisons like ADX Florence. In fact, it’s estimated that today, at least 80,000 people are suffering in solitary confinement in America’s prisons, overwhelmingly poor people and people and colour. And it’s not just the “most dangerous” (read: most political) prisoners languishing in solitary anymore. Oftentimes, it’s the most vulnerable prisoners who end up in solitary – people who are mentally ill, mentally retarded, learning-disabled, or illiterate; these are people who find it the most difficult to follow the minutia of prison rules. More recently, its people perceived to be associated with prison gangs – though as recently explored in an excellent series in Mother Jones, prisoners in Pelican Bay in California may be “gang validated” for seemingly innocuous items like a Christmas card or a drinking cup with a dragon drawn on it.

Solitary confinement… can you imagine it? This is how one inmate at Pelican Bay, Gabriel Reyes, describes it in a 2012 article:

“Unless you have lived it, you cannot imagine what it feels like to be by yourself, between four cold walls, with little concept of time, no one to confide in, and only a pillow for comfort – for years on end. It is a living tomb. I eat alone and exercise alone in a small, dank, cement enclosure known as the “dog-pen.” I am not allowed telephone calls, nor can my family visit me very often; the prison is hundreds of miles from the nearest city. I have not been allowed physical contact with any of my loved ones since 1995. I have developed severe insomnia, I suffer frequent headaches, and I feel helpless and hopeless. In short, I am being psychologically tortured.” …more

Mr. Gnjidic said. “The question is: What is with the big fish, with Germany, with the U.S.A.? All he ever wanted was to know why this was done to him and an apology.”

Court Finds Rights Violation in C.I.A. Rendition Case
By NICHOLAS KULISH – 13 December, 2012 – NYT

BERLIN — A German man who was mistaken for a terrorist and abducted nine years ago won a measure of redress on Thursday when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that his rights had been violated and confirmed his account that he had been seized by Macedonia, handed over to the C.I.A., brutalized and detained for months in Afghanistan.

In a unanimous ruling, the 17-judge panel, based in Strasbourg, France, found that Macedonia had violated the European Convention on Human Rights’ prohibition on torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, and ordered it to pay the man about $78,000 in damages. It was the first time a court had ruled in favor of the man, Khaled el-Masri, 49, in a case that focused attention on the C.I.A.’s clandestine rendition program, in which terrorism suspects were transported to third countries for interrogation.

The decision, which Amnesty International hailed as “a historic moment and a milestone in the fight against impunity,” is final and cannot be appealed. The C.I.A. declined to comment. A lawsuit against the United States filed on Mr. Masri’s behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union was dismissed in 2006 on the grounds that it would expose state secrets. The group filed a petition in 2008 at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2008; the United States government has yet to respond.

Mr. Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, was pulled off a bus at the Macedonian border on New Year’s Eve in 2003 after guards confused him with an operative of Al Qaeda who had a similar name. He was taken to a hotel in the capital, Skopje, and locked in a room there for 23 days. His detention, along with the threat that he would be shot if he left the hotel room, “amounted on various counts to inhuman and degrading treatment,” the ruling said.

When he was handed over to the C.I.A. rendition team at the Skopje airport, he was “severely beaten, sodomized, shackled and hooded” in the presence of Macedonian officials, the ruling said, a treatment that “amounted to torture.” He was then flown to Afghanistan, where he spent more than four months in captivity before being flown to Albania and dropped on the side of a road.

His German lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic, said his mental state had suffered not only from the abuse but also from the “nine years of constantly fighting, being called a liar, a terrorist, an Islamist, a hard-liner.” Mr. Masri has broken off contact with his lawyers while serving a prison sentence on unrelated charges involving a 2009 assault on the mayor of Neu-Ulm in Bavaria.

Mr. Gnjidic said he had written to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany asking the government to appeal to Washington on Mr. Masri’s behalf. “Macedonia was only the henchman of the great powers,” Mr. Gnjidic said. “The question is: What is with the big fish, with Germany, with the U.S.A.? All he ever wanted was to know why this was done to him and an apology.” …source

Beirut Hosts “Democracy Support in Bahrain” Conference
al-Ahed News – translated and edited by moqawama.org – 14 December, 2012

Bahrain Forum for Human Rights held its second “International Conference to Support Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain” in Beirut, with international legal and media figures, members of government and parliamentary from Lebanon, the Islamic and Arab world, among other countries attending the event.

The organizers held slogans of: “Bahrain a sectarian regime, but no sectarian demands,” and “Organizations admit Bahrain with no public right.”

In addition, a small documentary was screened exposing the unjust arrests that Bahrainis consistently suffer, chasing down protestors with cars, severely beating Bahrainis, destroying houses, and displaying slides of martyrs and injured. The reportage further stated that the Bassiouni Report on Bahrain did not change the regime’s severe oppression.

In this context, Head of The Bahrain Forum for Human Rights Youssef Rabie accentuated during the conference opening that, “Support Democracy and Human Rights was a title chosen for its constitutional right and international guarantee, and it is the base of the Bahraini movement away from media mislead.”

Rabie mentioned, “There are more than 400 martyrs and 54 ruined and vandalized mosques and worship places, many laid off work, political oppressive verdicts, student expulsion, abuse of human dignity, and summoning Saudi forces.”

For his part, member of Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc MP Nawwar Saheli reiterated that “organizations and human rights associations worldwide are politicized and biased,” wondering, “where these associations are during Bahrain’s events?”

“The world must listen to the mass majority of the Bahrainis and not a mere sect, and it must oblige the Bahraini government to include the oppressed majority in ruling on democratic basis,” Saheli added.

Moreover, Imam of al-Quds Mosque in Sidon Maher Hammoud accentuated in an interview with al-Ahed News website that “this conference must be supported by everyone,” indicating that “there are more than 50% of the Bahraini people who demand basic rights, however the regime takes sectarianism as an excuse to not meet their demands.”

Furthermore, the Bahraini opposition abroad Sheikh Hussein Haddad told al-Ahed News website that, “all conferences organized by the abroad Bahraini opposition are weapons to demand Bahraini rights,” indicating that “the conference, in participation of international representatives, conveys a message to the world of the Bahraini oppression and exposes major facts occurring in Bahrain.”

Under the sight of the Arab League, the Islamic Organization Conference, and the US, who always speak of human rights and democracy, the Bahraini regime still oppresses innocent civilians who demand the least of human rights, kills peaceful protestors, arrests legal activists, postpones detainees’ trials, as well as arrests and assaults innocent children. ….source

The Obama administration should seize the opportunity to reinvigorate a national security policy long plagued by the absence of legal accountability. President Obama should immediately and publicly acknowledge the wrong that was done to Mr. Masri, apologize on behalf of the American people and offer reasonable compensation to Mr. Masri.

Rendition Condemned
By JAMES A. GOLDSTON – 13 December, 2012 –

THE United States government has been trying for almost a decade to hush up what it did to Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen whose story of mistaken identity, abduction and abuse was one of the low points in the C.I.A.’s post 9/11 “war on terror.”

This morning, the cover-up ended. The European Court of Human Rights held that Mr. Masri’s forcible disappearance, kidnapping and covert transfer without legal process to United States custody nine years ago violated the most basic guarantees of human decency. Notably, the court found that the treatment suffered by Mr. Masri in 2003 “at the hands of the special C.I.A. rendition team,” at an airport in Skopje, the capital of the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, “amounted to torture.”

Although the case was filed against the Macedonian government and the court does not have jurisdiction over the United States, the ruling is a powerful condemnation of improper C.I.A. tactics and of the abject failure of any American court to provide redress for Mr. Masri or the other victims of Washington’s discredited policy of secret detention and extraordinary rendition.

The 17 judges in the European court’s grand chamber, several of whom grew up under Communism, have done what the United States Supreme Court has declined to do: condemn an egregious abuse of an innocent man by out-of-control security services.

Mr. Masri was seized by local security officers in Macedonia on Dec. 31, 2003, while crossing the border from Serbia by bus. At the American government’s request, he was held incommunicado for 23 days, then turned over to the C.I.A. at Skopje airport, where, according to the court ruling, he was “severely beaten, sodomized, shackled and hooded,” and flown to Kabul, Afghanistan. He was kept for four months in a putrid, unheated cell in a secret American-run prison known as the Salt Pit. He was never charged with a crime or given access to his family, a lawyer or German consular officers.

In fact, as the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, declared in December 2005 after meeting with Condoleezza Rice, then the secretary of state, the C.I.A. blundered in seeking Mr. Masri’s capture. As became clear shortly after his forced disappearance commenced, Mr. Masri was the wrong guy; he was detained because his name resembled that of an Al Qaeda suspect.

But Mr. Masri was kept in prison long after Washington realized its error. It was only on May 28, 2004, that Mr. Masri was reverse-rendered by the C.I.A. to another American ally, Albania. There, he was told not to tell anyone what had happened to him, then placed on a commercial flight back to Germany.

Although inquiries by the Council of Europe and the German Parliament pointed to the United States’ responsibility, the American government has never publicly admitted what happened. To the contrary, American officials sought to block German and Spanish criminal inquiries and obtained dismissal of Mr. Masri’s attempts to engage United States courts on the grounds that “state secrets” precluded consideration of his claims.

Now that the European Court of Human Rights has ruled, the key governments implicated in the affair must make good.

Macedonia should commit to the establishment of a commission of inquiry capable of leading to the identification and punishment of the Macedonian officials who participated in his extraordinary rendition. Germany should disclose its own role, and its ministry of justice should transmit to the United States authorities arrest warrants issued in January 2007, but never sent, for 13 C.I.A. operatives accused of involvement in the case.

The Obama administration should seize the opportunity to reinvigorate a national security policy long plagued by the absence of legal accountability. President Obama should immediately and publicly acknowledge the wrong that was done to Mr. Masri, apologize on behalf of the American people and offer reasonable compensation to Mr. Masri.

And beyond this case, the administration should abandon the policy of excessive secrecy that has diminished the moral authority of, and public support for, its counterterrorism program. …more

This vote marks an important step towards ensuring that past policies and practices of torture and official cruelty in U.S. intelligence operations will not be repeated. Pray tell how? This is “business as usual” for the CIA. Is Feinstein really serious? Does she think CIA crimes documented in the report were unnoticed by those who sit on Senate oversight committees. Senator, the public isn’t as stupid as you pretend to be… Until the Senate puts together something with far reaching prosecutorial powers and actual convicts those issuing the orders to conduct these operation there will be “business as usual”. And what’s up with the liberals at HRF pushing such obligingly shallow commentary and analysis for Feinstein? Phlipn out.

Senate CIA Torture Report Adopted, Provides Factual, Comprehensive Review of U.S. Torture Program
13 December, 2012 – Human Rights First

Washington, DC – Human Rights First applauds the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) for voting to adopt a 6,000 plus page report on the former CIA detention and torture program. This vote marks an important step towards ensuring that past policies and practices of torture and official cruelty in U.S. intelligence operations will not be repeated. The committee, led by Chair Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and joined by 8 members, including Republican Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), voted 9-6 to adopt the report, which will now go to the Obama Administration for review and comment.

“By voting to adopt this report, the committee has sent a clear message that torture and abuse have no place in U.S. intelligence operations,” said Human Rights First’s Melina Milazzo. “The American people deserve to know the truth, and the committee should now commit to publicly releasing the report with as few redactions as possible.”

In a statement released after the vote, Senator Feinstein stated, “The report uncovers startling details about the CIA detention and interrogation program and raises critical questions about intelligence operations and oversight.” She concluded, “I strongly believe that the creation of long-term, clandestine ‘black sites’ and the use of so-called ‘enhanced-interrogation techniques’ were terrible mistakes. The majority of the Committee agrees.”

In a statement sent to the committee today, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said, “It is my hope that we can reach a consensus in this country that we will never again engage in these horrific abuses, and that the mere suggestion of doing so should be ruled out of our political discourse, regardless of which party holds power. It is therefore my hope that this Committee will take whatever steps necessary to finalize and declassify this report, so that all Americans can see the record for themselves, which I believe will finally close this painful chapter for our country. “

Today’s vote comes in advance of the soon-to-be-released film “Zero Dark Thirty,” which provides a fictionalized account of how the United States carried out its operation to find Osama bin Laden. The film has renewed the debate over the efficacy of torture in providing actionable intelligence, despite statements made to the contrary by senior government officials, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Senator Feinstein.

“It’s high-time to put an end to this debate,” Milazzo noted. “The committee’s comprehensive, factual review of the classified record – information that no one else has – can finally set the record straight. The committee has taken a critical first step by adopting its report. Now, it should work to publicly release it and let the facts speak for themselves.”

As Brigadier General David R. Irvine (Ret.), a former Army strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner of war interrogation, said of the CIA Torture report earlier this week in a conference call, “[It] won’t be made into a Hollywood movie, but it will be enormously valuable to the next generation of leaders who need to understand at the very highest levels that democracy and torture cannot exist in the same body politic.”

“It is only by having all the information available that the American public can understand how this failure of U.S. policy occurred and be better positioned to prevent it from happening again,” concluded Milazzo. …source

U.S. to deploy Patriot missiles, troops to Turkey
By Dan De Luce – Agence France Presse – 14 Decemebr, 2012 – The Daily Star

INCIRLIK, Turkey: The United States will deploy two Patriot missile batteries to Turkey along with 400 troops to help defend its ally against potential threats from neighbouring Syria, US officials said Friday.

The move was part of a wider NATO effort to bolster Turkey’s air defences amid growing tension on the Turkish-Syrian border, with Ankara siding with opposition forces battling President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta issued the order before landing at the Incirlik airbase in Turkey after a visit to Afghanistan, his spokesman said.

“The secretary, as we are en route to Turkey, has signed an order that will deploy some 400 US personnel to Turkey to support two Patriot missile batteries,” George Little told reporters aboard Panetta’s plane.

“We expect them to be deployed in the coming weeks.”

Turkey is a “very strong ally” and the US government is prepared in the context of NATO to support the defence of Turkey,” Little said.

Germany and the Netherlands also have agreed to provide advanced “hit-to-kill” Patriot weapons, which are designed to knock out cruise and ballistic missiles as well as aircraft.

The move coincides with rising fears the Syrian regime may resort to using chemical weapons against rebel forces and after Assad’s army unleashed Scud missiles in recent days.

US and European leaders have warned the Assad regime not to use its arsenal of chemical arms, calling it a “red line” that would trigger international military action.

Turkey has vowed to defend its territory after cross-border artillery fire wounded civilians and following the downing of one of its fighter jets.

The Patriot, or ‘Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept on Target,’ came into its own during the 1991 Gulf War when they were deployed to protect allies and US forces from Iraqi Scud missiles. The Patriot’s boxy launch units became instantly recognisable in TV images of the conflict.

The anti-ballistic defence system was developed by arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin for the US Army.

Panetta arrived in Turkey for a brief stop after a two day visit to Afghanistan, where he consulted with commanders on future troop numbers.

…more

Human Rights activists demand immediate end to Al Khalifa crackdown on Bahrainis
13 December, 2012 – ABNA

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – During a meeting in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on Thursday, the participants sought to raise awareness about the flagrant human rights violations in the Persian Gulf kingdom, amid the brutal crackdown by the ruling Al Khalifa regime.

“The regime has been using an excessive amount of tear gas even throwing it into homes, to collectively punish groups for protests. They have been maiming protesters with bird shots, and they have also been torturing doctors, journalists, and even school children. So, these human rights abuses have been very rampant, and also have been worrisome. When it comes to the West, it is worrisome that the US continues to support this regime,” Amber Lyon, former CNN correspondent and a guest to the conference, said.

She added, “The main issue here to be discussed is a way to get everyone together, the human rights groups, the journalists, doctors from all over the world, and politicians to coalesce into a group that can come up with solutions.”

“The biggest issue, I think, facing Bahrain is the inability for people to communicate in person because we are not allowed to go to Bahrain. As a journalist, I have been blacklisted. I have been denied a visa. So, it is very difficult for all of us to come together as a group and discuss solutions. This conference offers us that opportunity and hope,” Lyon said.

The Bahraini revolution began in mid-February 2011, when the people, inspired by the popular revolutions that toppled the dictators of Tunisia and Egypt, began holding mass demonstrations.

The Bahraini government promptly launched a brutal crackdown on the peaceful protests and called in Saudi-led Arab forces to help quell the unrest.

Dozens of people have been killed in the crackdown, and Bahraini security forces have arrested hundreds, including doctors and nurses accused of treating injured protesters.

A report published by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry in November 2011 found that the Al Khalifa regime had used excessive force in the crackdown and accused Manama of torturing political activists, politicians, and protesters.

The protesters say they will continue holding anti-regime demonstrations until their demand for the establishment of a democratically elected government is met. …source

Bahrain opposition seeks UK support as tension simmers
By Frank Gardner – BBC

The leader of Bahrain’s main opposition party has called on the UK government to act as a mediator with the ruling al-Khalifa family if progress towards democracy remains stalled in the troubled Gulf state.

In a meeting with the BBC, Sheikh Ali Salman, the leader of the al-Wefaq party, said western countries, including Britain and the US, needed to do more to prevent Bahrain falling prey to extremism by both sides.

“I believe that we need more from Britain and the US to achieve, on the ground, the change to democracy without any delay. The advantage is for everyone – Bahrainis, Americans, British,” he said.

His call came as both the ruling family and the political opposition said they wanted to resolve Bahrain’s difficulties by dialogue. Yet, in practice, the two remain far apart, with ongoing criticism of the country’s human rights record.

This has been my fourth visit to Bahrain since the Arab Spring uprisings began last year and, despite the calm on the streets in the heart of the capital, Manama, it is still a deeply divided and troubled place with tension simmering in the restive villages that ring the capital.

Dozens have been killed in clashes since protests erupted in February 2011 and Bahrain has been heavily criticised recently by human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Al-Wefaq says that if anything, human rights in Bahrain are deteriorating, with a recent blanket ban on protests.

There have however been some reforms, following an international commission of inquiry last year. There are now CCTV cameras in police stations and prisons, and police are given extensive training in public order. …more

“Friends of Syria” meeting demands Assad cede power to Islamist opposition
By Alex Lantier – 13 December, 2012 – WSWS

Representatives of 130 governments, led by Washington and its European and Arab allies, attended a “Friends of Syria” meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco yesterday. Moroccan Foreign Minister Saad Eddine El Othmani said they had agreed to declare the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces the sole representative of the Syrian people.

The meeting came the day after US President Barack Obama officially recognized the National Coalition. The Islamist-dominated coalition was organized by the US State Department to represent the armed opposition groups fighting a NATO-backed proxy war against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

A draft declaration circulated at the Marrakesh meeting stated, “Participants acknowledge the National Coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people and the umbrella organization under which the Syrian opposition are gathering … Bashar al-Assad has lost legitimacy and should stand aside to allow a sustainable political transition.”

Countries that still support Assad, including Russia, China, and Iran, did not attend the meeting in Marrakech. Speaking of the meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, “The United States has decided to place all its bets on an armed victory of the National Coalition.”

The meeting highlighted the criminal and reactionary character of the NATO proxy war against Syria, in which the US’ Arab allies arm Al Qaeda-linked forces in a terrorist campaign with devastating consequences for Syrian civilians.

Syrian Muslim Brotherhood deputy leader Farouq Tayfour set the tone, suggesting that National Coalition forces would extra-judicially murder Assad. He compared Assad’s fate to that of Libyan head of state Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi, whose government was overthrown last year in a NATO war. Gaddafi was ultimately tortured and lynched by US-backed guerrillas after his convoy was bombed by NATO warplanes as he fled his hometown of Sirte.

Tayfour said: “Bashar is under siege. His end will be like Gaddafi’s end. Didn’t Bashar say, ‘I was born in Syria and I will die in Syria’? That is what Gaddafi said as well, and that’s it.”

Washington’s Islamist proxies criticized the State Department’s decision announced on Tuesday to designate the Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate inside the Syrian opposition, as a terrorist group. The State Department Spokeswoman charged the Al Nusra Front with having carried out nearly 600 attacks over the last year in Syria, in which “numerous innocent Syrians have been killed.” …more

Iranian Bomb Graph Appears Adapted from One on Internet
By Gareth Porter – 13 December, 2012 – IPS

WASHINGTON, Dec 13 2012 (IPS) – The suspect graph of a nuclear explosion reportedly provided to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as evidence of Iranian computer modeling of nuclear weapons yields appears to have been adapted from a very similar graph in a scholarly journal article published in January 2009 and available on the internet.

Graph published by the scholarly journal Nuclear Engineering and Design, Volume 239, Issue 1, January 2009, Pages 80–86.

The graph, published in a Nov. 27 Associated Press story but immediately found to have a mathematical error of four orders of magnitude, closely resembles a graph accompanying a scholarly article modeling a nuclear explosion. It provides a plausible explanation for the origins of the graph leaked to AP, according to two nuclear physicists following the issue closely.

The graph in the scholarly journal article was well known to the IAEA at the time of its publication, according to a knowledgeable source.

That means that the IAEA should have been able to make the connection between the set of graphs alleged to have been used by Iran to calculate yields from nuclear explosions that the agency obtained in 2011 and the very similar graph available on the internet.

The IAEA did not identify the member countries that provided the intelligence about the alleged Iran studies. However, Israel provided most of the intelligence cited by the IAEA in its 2011 report, and Israeli intelligence has been the source of a number of leaks to the AP reporter in Vienna, George Jahn.

Graph published by the Associated Press on Nov. 27, 2012, reportedly as evidence of Iranian computer modeling of nuclear weapons yields.

The graph accompanying an article in the January 2009 issue of the journal Nuclear Engineering and Design by retired Swiss nuclear engineer Walter Seifritz displayed a curve representing power in a nuclear explosion over fractions of a second that is very close to the one shown in the graph published by AP and attributed by the officials leaking it to an Iranian scientist.

Both graphs depict a nuclear explosion as an asymmetrical bell curve in which the right side of the curve is more elongated than the left side. Although both graphs are too crudely drawn to allow precise measurement, it appears that the difference between the two sides of the curve on the two graphs is very close to the same in both graphs.

The AP graph appears to show a total energy production of 50 kilotonnes taking place over about 0.3 microseconds, whereas the Seifritz graph shows a total of roughly 18 kilotonnes produced over about 0.1 microseconds.

The resemblance is so dramatic that two nuclear specialists who compared the graphs at the request of IPS consider it very plausible that the graph leaked to AP as part of an Iranian secret nuclear weapons research programme may well have been derived from the one in the journal article.

Scott Kemp, an assistant professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told IPS he suspects the graph leaked to AP was “adapted from the open literature”. He said he believes the authors of that graph “were told they ought to look into the literature and found that paper, copied (the graph) and made their own plot from it.” …more

The United States can no longer afford to launch major wars like Korea, Vietnam or Iraq. Obama prefers to intensify secret military action. Manlio Dinucci lays out the plan.

Obama prefers to keep it hidden
Voltaire Network – 13 December, 2012 – by Manlio Dinucci

President Obama does not like war. Not because he is a Nobel Peace prize-winner, but because open aggressive action would reveal US strategy and the interests upon which it is based. So he has launched a grand plan which, as the Washington Post notes, “reflects the Obama administration’s affinity for espionage and covert action over conventional force.”

This plan is intended to restructure and reinforce the Defense Intelligence Agency, which until now has been concentrated on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, so that it can operate on a global scale as a “spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units.”

The first step will be to expand the organigram of the DIA, whose personnel has been doubled over the last decade, and now numbers some 16,500 members. A “new generation of clandestine operatives” will be formed, ready to be sent overseas. They will be trained by the CIA in its centre in Virginia, known as “The Farm”, where secret agents are groomed – a number of new posts will be created for the DIA pupils, totaling about 20% of the Farm’s turnover.

The ever closer collaboration between these two agencies is born out by the fact that the DIA has adopted a few of the CIA’s internal structures, amongst others, a unit dubbed “Persia House”, which co-ordinates secret operations inside Iran.

The new DIA agents will also take a specialisation course directed by the Commander of Special Operations. Apart from training recruits to eliminate the enemy, he also teaches “non-conventional warfare” to be conducted by exterior forces who are specially trained for this purpose; “counter-insurrection”, to help allied governments to repress rebellion; and “psychological operations” intended to influence public opinion so that the population comes to support US military action.

Once their training is complete, these new DIA agents, about 1,600 at first, will be assigned by the Pentagon to missions all over the world. The State Department will provide them with false identities, introducing some of them into embassies – but since the embassies are already full of CIA agents, the DIA agents will be given other false identities, for example, as university staff or business executives.

Thanks to their military experience, the DIA agents are reputed to be more appropriate for the recruitment of informers capable of providing data of a military nature, for example, information concerning the new Chinese fighter plane. And the development of their organigram will enable the DIA to expand the range of targets for drone strikes and actions by special forces.

This is the new way of making war, preparing and accompanying open attacks by secret action intended to weaken the target country from inside, as was done in Libya, or undermine it internally, as is being attempted in Syria. This is the direction taken by the restructured DIA, launched by President Obama.

We don’t know if the candidate for Prime Minister Pier Luigi Bersani [1], who holds Obama in great esteem, has already congratulated him for this action. However, he has recently visited Libya in order to “pick up the thread of a strong Italian presence in the Mediterranean”. Meaning the thread of war against Libya, in which Italy participated under US orders, while Bersani rejoiced, exclaiming “it’s about time”.
…source

Bahrain’s crown prince demands Shiite clerics quell uprising violence
By Associated Press – 7 December, 2012 – Washington Post

MANAMA, Bahrain — Bahrain’s Shiite religious leaders must more forcefully denounce violence as a key step to ease the kingdom’s 22-month uprising, the country’s crown prince said Friday at the opening of an international security conference.

The appeal by Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa underscores the view of Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy that Shiite clerics should be held partly responsible for rising violence in the strategic Gulf nation. It also suggests authorities could increase pressure on top Shiite clergymen, whom he referred to as ‘ayatollahs’ — a term more often associated with senior religious figures in rival Iran.

“I call on all those who disagree with the government, including the ayatollahs, to condemn violence on the street unequivocally . And more, to prohibit violence,” the crown prince told policymakers and political figures gathered for the annual two-day conference known as the Manama Dialogue. “Responsible leadership is called for and I believe dialogue is the only way forward,” he added.

More than 55 people have died in the unrest since February 2011, when Bahrain’s majority Shiites escalated a long-simmering drive for a greater political voice in the Sunni-ruled country.

The monarchy has offered some concessions, including giving the elected parliament expanded powers. But it falls far short of Shiite demands to loosen the Sunni rulers’ controls over key government appointments and policies.

Shiite religious leaders, including the most senior cleric Sheik Isa Qassim, have never publicly endorsed violence, but have encouraged peaceful anti-government protests to challenge authorities. Breakaway groups during demonstrations often clash with riot police.

The conference includes high-level envoys from Bahrain’s Western allies, which have so far stood behind the kingdom’s leadership but are increasingly troubled by rising violence and continued crackdowns on the opposition. The U.S. delegation is led by Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and includes Arizona Sen. John McCain.

The crown prince thanked a host of nations for assistance during the crisis, but noticeably did not refer to the U.S. in his remarks — an omission that underlined the two countries’ increasingly strained ties. He criticized nations that “selectively” criticize Bahrain’s leadership, without citing specific countries.

Washington has called for dialogue in Bahrain, but sharply condemned its leaders’ decision late last month to ban political rallies. The country hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, the Pentagon’s main hub against Iran’s rising military profile in the Gulf.

Earlier, the leaders of Bahrain’s main opposition group urged participants at the summit to press Bahraini officials to open wide-ranging talks.

Sheik Ali Salman told thousands of supporters that the international envoys should push Bahrain’s rulers to recognize the “demands of the people” and open negotiations. …source

Bahrain tensions a trigger for Gulf turmoil
By Jeremy Bowen – 12 December, 2012 – BBC

The contest for power between Shia and Sunni Muslims is manifesting itself across the region

The chant that has been part of the soundtrack of the uprisings in the Middle East since the beginning of 2011 is a rhythmic rendition of the words in Arabic that mean: “The people want the fall of the regime.”

On a dark, drizzly night in Bahrain they echoed back off the scruffy, peeling walls of Muhazza, a village just outside the capital, Manama.

A few hundred Muhazza residents had gathered, defying the ban on public demonstrations that was imposed in October.

They waited for the police to arrive, alternating the chant about the fall of the regime with: “Down with Hamad” – in reference to Bahrain’s King Hamad al-Khalifah.

The protesters were Shia Muslims, the majority sect in Bahrain. The Khalifahs, like most of Bahrain’s establishment, are Sunni.
‘Second-class citizens’

The trouble in Muhazza – and other Shia villages in Bahrain – is more than a little local difficulty.

Bahrain is caught up in the big forces that are reshaping the Middle East. They include the pressure for change and the desires and ambitions of major powers.

Bahrain is much poorer than its rich neighbours in the UAE and Qatar, and there are long-established economic grievances, particularly to do with unemployment and poor housing.

It is also the home port for the US Fifth Fleet, whose jobs include keeping the oil export routes open and reminding Iran of what the Americans could do to them if they so wished.

But the most significant single cause of unrest and outright violence in the new Middle East is religious sectarianism.

Bahrain lies between Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia and the Shias of Iran, and has a long history of sectarian tension, between the Shia majority and the Sunni minority.

The Sunnis control most of the money and power. Some Shia families have done well out of the system, and have senior positions. But most have been treated like second-class citizens.

Shias and Sunnis are the equivalent of the Protestants and Catholics in the Christian world, often happy to intermarry and live peacefully alongside each other. But at times of tension, and sometimes because they have been inflamed by radical preachers, they can turn on each other.
Whiff of tear gas

It did not take long for the police to break up the demonstration in Muhazza.

The children seemed to sense them before they could see them, running for cover a few seconds before the police announced themselves with a stun grenade and a whiff of tear gas.

The adults scattered, running into shops and houses. The police made no attempt to pursue them, though locals said that in the previous few weeks there had been repeated violent raids in the early hours of the morning.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Bahrain’s justice minister, Khaled al Khalifa

We want to bring back unity in a way that heals the earlier error”

Khaled al-Khalifah Bahraini Justice Minister

Ten minutes later, the police had moved on to another emergency call, and the street filled with defiant residents who began chanting again.

Women produced trays of food. The people of Muhazza started to enjoy themselves.

When protesters in Bahrain tried to emulate the revolution in Egypt by starting mass demonstrations in February 2011, the first slogans called for reform, not for the overthrow of the ruling family.

The security forces responded to what became an uprising with great brutality.

The first protesters also included a fair proportion of Sunnis, who were fed up with the way the country has been run.

But since the crackdown, the confrontation has increasingly been on sectarian lines.

In a moment of unusual openness for a Middle Eastern ruling family, the king commissioned and accepted the findings of an independent report into what happened, which confirmed that the security forces had killed and tortured protesters.

A year after the report, known as the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), the ruling family is being accused of not doing enough to implement its findings, by its friends in the West as well as human rights groups and its critics inside Bahrain. …more

Julian Assange: Nabeel Rajab is a prisoner of conscience and he must be released
12 December, 2012 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights

Julian Assange released a statement today calling for the immediate release of BCHR President Nabeel Rajab.
Statement from Julian Assange on Nabeel Rajab:

“I last saw Nabeel Rajab, the President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, in March 2012. Nabeel flew to the United Kingdom, where I interviewed him for my television programme The World Tomorrow. While he had been on the plane, his house had been surrounded by armed police.

I asked him what he was going to do now. Wasn’t he fearful about returning home? He was adamant. He would return to Bahrain.

“[T]his is the struggle, this is the freedom, this is democracy that we are fighting for. It has a cost and we have to pay the cost, and the cost might be very expensive as we have paid a high cost in Bahrain, and we are willing to pay that for the changes that we are fighting for.”

Once he was back in Bahrain, a campaign of judicial harassment began. He was charged with illegal assembly and insulting the Prime Minister on Twitter. He was sentenced to three years in jail, for daring to claim his right to freedom of expression and association.

On December 11, after a long campaign of resistance, his sentence was reduced to two years.

This is not enough.

Nabeel Rajab is a prisoner of conscience. He should not be in jail at all. He should never have been put in jail. He must be released.

Immediately before his imprisonment, Nabeel Rajab was the leading voice of the Bahrain Spring. He has carried the banner, raised around the Islamic world in 2011, which cried out for ‘Huriyyah, Adalah Ijtima’iyah, Karamah’ – for Freedom, Social Justice, Dignity. What we know as the Arab Spring is, in Arabic, the ‘Thawraat l-Karamah’ – the ‘Revolutions of Dignity.’

Nabeel’s commitment to the moral importance of this movement cannot be doubted. Along with many other Bahrainis, he has given over his life and freedom for the reform of his country. Together, they have given everything. It is the regime that must now give ground.

The Bahraini regime has repeatedly promised reform, even commissioning a report on its own human rights abuses which found it guilty of practicing torture and the excessive use of force. It has failed to implement all but the most superficial of this report’s recommendations.

In particular, Recommendation 1722 (h) of this report called on the government, “To review convictions and commute sentences of all persons charged with offences involving political expression, not consisting of advocacy of violence, or, as the case may be, to drop outstanding charges against them.”

The regime has instead continued to imprison activists like Nabeel, for crimes solely related to their freedom of expression and assembly. Thirteen leading activists and opposition leaders remain in jail, despite international recognition of their status as political prisoners.

Originally slow to comment, even the President of the United States has asserted that “The only real way forward is for the government and opposition to engage in a dialogue, and you can’t have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail.”

Words do not match actions, however. Neither the US, which has a large military base in Bahrain, or the UK have applied any real pressure for the release of political prisoners, despite acknowledging this to be central to the reform process.

This is not a sophisticated issue. Our obligations are clear. The political prisoners of Bahrain must be freed as a necessary step towards peaceful reform. There will be no dignity in Bahrain until Nabeel Rajab is released.” …source

The U.S. is maneuvering to stem the revolutionary tide around the Middle East.

Washington’s plan to derail the Arab Spring
13 December, 2012 – SocialistWorker.org

BEHIND BARACK Obama’s rhetoric about democracy and freedom, the U.S. government is maneuvering to install a new generation of strongmen to roll back the Arab revolutions and reassert U.S. dominance in the Middle East.

In the latest two examples, the U.S. backed the power grab of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, and it has tried to install ex-regime officials at the head of Syria’s newly reorganized opposition. Thus, Washington hopes to divert two massive social uprisings into supportive governments that will remain allied to Western interests rather than reflect the popular will.

The stakes for the U.S. government are high. The invasion and occupation of Iraq–once considered by the arrogant hawks around George W. Bush to be the stepping stone to “regime change” from one end of the Arab world to the other–ultimately succeeded in turning the country into an ally of Iran, the main U.S. nemesis in the Middle East.

Last year’s Arab Spring–by overturning long-time dictators in a few countries and forcing governments in others to be more responsive to their populations–threatened to take even more nations out of their close U.S. orbit.

That, in turn, exposed the contradictions of U.S. reliance on Israel to dominate the region. Israel’s latest war on the Palestinian territory of Gaza not only failed to crush the Hamas government there, but also propelled the cause of Palestinian liberation to a level of prominence in Arab and Muslim countries unseen in decades.

THAT’S THE common thread in Washington’s seemingly contradictory policies since the revolutionary wave began in Tunisia two years ago. First, the U.S. supported Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali until a mass uprising and general strike forced him out, all in a matter of a month’s time. Washington followed the same script in Egypt, sticking with Hosni Mubarak–one of the linchpins of U.S. policy in the Arab world–until the last minute.

In Bahrain–the base of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet–Washington green-lighted savage counterrevolutionary repression against a peaceful pro-democracy movement. In Yemen, the U.S. eased out a despised authoritarian, in the hopes of shoring up a military-dominated government.

Only in Libya–where the U.S. and European powers armed rebels opposed to Muammar el-Qaddafi and carried out a punishing aerial assault under the guise of humanitarian aims–did the U.S. seem to unreservedly back the ouster of the old regime. But as Independent journalist Patrick Cockburn anticipated, the fall of Qaddafi’s regime was “primarily won by NATO, and not popular revolution.”

Over the two decades before his downfall, Qaddafi had been welcomed back into the good graces of the West on the basis of oil deals, but he was still considered too unreliable and isolated–and therefore expendable. So the Western powers channeled the revolution into a pliable government in which CIA assets and ex-Qaddafi officials played a key role.

The same method is at play in the U.S. policy toward Syria.

Barack Obama has voiced U.S. recognition of Syria’s opposition himself, signaling a more interventionist approach. But what’s remarkable about the U.S. attitude to the Bashar al-Assad regime is just how long the U.S. has held back from funding and arming the Syrian rebels. …source

David Petraeus May Have Committed Much Worse Crimes In Afghanistan
Michael Kelley – 14 November, 2012 – Business Insider

While ousted CIA Director David Petraeus eats dirt for his extra-marital affair, some people would like him to answer for much more serious crimes.

There is evidence that Petraeus, when he commanded US forces in Afghanistan, oversaw the intentional bombing of funerals and civilian rescuers with drones, which constitutes a war crime according to The International Criminal Court.

For years the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) has reported on the use of the double tap—a strategy used by terrorists that involves bombing a strike site multiple times in relatively quick succession to maximize devastation—and there are documented instances that Petraeus employed this tactic as CIA director.

In September the NYU and Standford law schools released a report detailing how double taps affect the Pakistani population, noting that several international law professors have said that “intentional strikes on first responders may constitute war crimes.”

The CIA used the tactic in Pakistan and Afghanistan In May and June of this year, and the killing of a Red Cross worker in Yemen—the first overt example of “explicit intelligence posthumously proving” that an innocent civilian has been killed—is a prime example of an extrajudicial execution.

But will Petraeus really go on trial for drone tactics? Like allegations of torture overseen by the Bush administration, it’s not likely.

Nevertheless the retired four-star general could face a court-martial if he began the affair with Paula Broadwell while on active duty in the army, since adultery is formally barred under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

Petraeus, 60, says the affair began a couple of months after he became CIA director in September 2011 after relinquishing command of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan in July 2011 and retiring from the U.S. Army the following month. But his story is challenged by the timeline of their interactions: Petraeus met Broadwell in the spring of 2006, began being studied by her in 2008, was visited by her six times over the course of the year after he took over allied troops in Afghanistan on June 30, 2010, and according to Michael Hastings, took Broadwell along with him on a government-funded trip to Paris in July 2011.

But we don’t expect the court martial to happen either, since the U.S. Army would have to reinstate Petraeus to active duty before the trial and consequently add to the shame being heaped on the highest tier of the U.S. military.
…source